


To Love A Lion

by SomeTorist



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Blow Jobs, Canon Compliant, Durincest, Hand Jobs, Incest, M/M, Romance, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-20
Updated: 2013-01-20
Packaged: 2017-11-26 07:32:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/648120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeTorist/pseuds/SomeTorist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fíli lusts like he fights like he lives: for Kíli. Only ever for Kíli.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Love A Lion

**Author's Note:**

> Totally unbeta'd, so all mistakes are my own.
> 
> My first time writing anything over a T rating, so feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Fíli fights like he lives: with one eye on Kíli. 

Uncle Thorin finally throws them together in an evenly matched spar. It _shouldn’t_ be even, given Fíli’s five extra years of experience, but he’s always given too much quarter to his younger brother. Kíli’s young, younger than Fíli in more ways than one, and Fíli is presented with too many opportunities to bring the match to a swift end. To his uncle’s growing frustration, Fíli takes none of them.

“Fíli!” Thorin finally growls, “Finish this!”

Fíli ignores him, and instead lets Kíli sweep his legs out from under him in an amateur – but powerful – strike. Fíli grins lazily up at his brother, his back only slightly sore from hitting the ground so suddenly.

“Well done,” he says blandly.

Kíli, who had momentarily been stunned at his sudden prowess and immediately worried for his brother, furrows his brow. He glances over his shoulder at the scowling Thorin. “Fíli,” he almost whines, “Don’t say you _let_ me win.”

Fíli stands with a great roll of his shoulders. “Alright, I won’t.” At Kíli’s frustrated huff, Fíli’s smirk only grows. “Come on,” he says easily, briefly clapping a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Again.”

It takes Fíli less than ten seconds to knock Kíli on his back.

In the brief interim while his brother lies breathless before him, Fíli makes eye contact with his uncle. Thorin’s gaze narrows, sharpens, and he shakes his head ever so slightly. Fíli can practically _hear_ his deep rumble in his head: _You do him no favors by coddling him so. Better he learn now—and learn quickly._ Fíli keeps his gaze steady, tipping his chin up in a rare sign of defiance. Kíli might be both their family, but he’s been Fíli’s longer. Kíli is _his_ , and he’ll teach him to fight in the manner he thinks best.

Even from yards away, Fíli hears the frustrated growl that tears from Thorin’s throat.

And Thorin is stalking towards them, closing the distance, one of their spare blunt wooden swords in his hand.

“Kíli,” Fíli murmurs, excitement and adrenaline blending in his lowered cadence, “Get up. Now.”

Kíli obeys with a groan that sends a strange heat to Fíli’s belly, but they turn as one to face their uncle, and, for a good long while, nothing else matters but the crash of wood-on-wood and the sweat pouring into his eyes and the pounding in his ears and the panting of his lungs and the singing of his pulse and Kíli and Kíli and Kíli.

Thorin seems determined to teach a lesson, though which of them he seeks to teach is a mystery. But his almost-constant target is Kíli, who fights in bursts and starts, who fights like he’s sprinting, who’s always been better with a bow than a sword. Thorin is relentless, constantly driving at his younger nephew with such terrible ferocity that Fíli marvels at his brother’s courage. But though Kíli is the one under steady attack, it is Fíli who, in the end, wields more bruises. For every time that Thorin bears down on Kíli, Fíli is behind him with a counterattack, a sharp blow to his ribs or his knees, and Fíli is only rewarded for his loyalty with even sharper, faster, less careful blows from the angered Thorin.

The two-on-one battle ends the only way it ever could: with both brothers finally on the ground, their uncle standing victorious above them.

“Yield,” Thorin growls, his battered wooden sword pointed at Fíli’s throat. It’s only a formality, and Fíli’s pride is stinging.

He says nothing.

“ _Yield_ ,” Thorin repeats, his voice now dangerously low, even through his heavy breathing. Still, Fíli can’t bring himself to respond.

It is Kíli who finally answers for the both of them.

“We yield,” Kíli says calmly, an exhausted smile flitting about his lips. “We yield, uncle.” Fíli feels an elbow in his side, but he still does nothing. He watches Thorin’s jaw clench and unclench, watches the tenseness in his muscles grudgingly relax, until his uncle is only stern, and nothing else. Thorin nods once, tosses the sword aside like it’s mortally offended him, and walks away without another word.

When Fíli turns to his brother, Kíli is grinning.

“That was brilliant,” Kíli breathes, smiling brightly through his fatigue. “Wasn’t it, Fíli? _Exhilarating_.” He settles on his side, so close that the two of them are almost breathing the same air.

Saying nothing of the soreness of his limbs or the tenderness of his new bruises, Fíli matches his brother’s smile. “Brilliant,” he echoes, absently brushing a stray strand of hair from Kíli’s face.

There is a moment, a quiet moment, a rare moment, when neither says anything, content in the silence and the almost-shared breaths.

And then Kíli is up again, up like a jackrabbit, pulling Fíli up after him with a shout and a grin and a boundless energy brighter than the sun.

 

* * *

 

Kíli can always be found in the center of a throng, roaring with laughter, grinning with a blinding intensity, louder than he needs to be but always just shy of _too loud_ — especially in a tavern.

When Fíli steps over the threshold, he’s greeted by the familiar smell of alcohol and the even more familiar shout of _“brother!”_ Fíli doesn’t try to stop the fond smile tugging at his lips as he moves to join Kíli at the center table. “My little lioness,” Kíli slurs to the crowd as introduction, a half-empty flagon clutched in his hand. The group cheers in welcome, and Fíli receives a number of friendly claps on the back as someone slides a free drink into his left hand.

“Lioness, eh?” a booming voice teases. “Suits him! He’s a pretty one, he is.”

Fíli smiles lazily in response and lifts his drink as a salute to the stranger. Beside him, Kíli shifts over until their thighs are flushed, side-by-side, and he swings an arm around Fíli’s shoulder so quickly it’s almost possessive.

“It’s our mother’s nickname for him,” Kíli says conversationally. He leans forward, pulling Fíli with him. “Or, well, enough… He’s the lion, is what I mean!” Kíli grins brightly, too brightly, and Fíli finds himself wondering whether his brother’s smile has always been this manic. He doesn’t think so. “He’s the lion,” Kíli repeats, gesturing to Fíli with the almost-empty flagon, “And I’m the jackrabbit!” Kíli’s obviously prepared for the roar of laughter that always accompanies this particular tale; he nods his head, grinning, as the men around the table wipe tears of mirth from their eyes.

“Sounds like you got the short end of the stick, laddie,” a burly man chuckles from the end of the bench.

Kíli shrugs and casually drains his flagon with a series of quick gulps that leave Fíli unexplainably breathless. He can’t tear his gaze from his brother’s throat. Still, he suddenly finds his eyes catching on Kíli’s, and something scalding seems to shoot down his spine. “No,” Kíli murmurs blandly. Fíli feels the breath of the word on his cheek and under his skin. “No, sir, I don’t believe I did.”

 

* * *

 

Fíli lusts like he fights like he lives: for Kíli. Only ever for Kíli.

It doesn’t help that, at seventy-five and seventy years of age, they still share a bed wherever they go.

“It’s warmer,” Kíli says.

“It’s cheaper,” Fíli says.

“It’s more comfortable,” they say, and Uncle Thorin learned not to fight it long ago, so he grumbles and books two rooms with two beds between them instead of three.

Their limbs slot together easily, their bodies two links of the same chain, and if Fíli were the pensive sort, he might search for some deeper meaning in it. He would search for meaning in the way Kíli’s hands always rest on his when Fíli wraps his arms about his brother’s waist. He would search for meaning in the way Kíli’s head so quickly and easily nestles into the crook of his neck. He would search for meaning in the way Kíli looks at him when he thinks Fíli can’t see— like Kíli wants to devour him.

But Fíli is familiar enough with the natural world to know that lions are the destructive beasts that devour jackrabbits, not the other way around.

And Fíli is familiar enough with his brother to know that Kíli won’t try anything without a clear sign, and Fíli is too much of a coward wrapped in the shrouds of dignity and responsibility to offer that clear sign, and he believes them to be safe in this untouchable, intangible, in-between space.

And Fíli hates when he’s wrong.

 

* * *

 

It’s hug. Just a hug.

It’s meant to be just a hug.

They’ve hugged before.

Despite his newfound height, Kíli’s head ends up nestled against Fíli’s neck, the scruff about his lips scratching at the sensitive skin. Fíli doesn’t let himself worry that his brother will notice the goose bumps he knows will soon form.

“Are those goose bumps?” Kíli murmurs sleepily into his brother’s neck. Knowing Kíli won’t see, Fíli rolls his eyes; though he can’t help but swallow dryly, despite knowing that this, Kíli _will_ see. Fíli doesn’t trust his voice, so he shrugs. “Goose bumps,” Kíli whispers against the same spot. The heat of his breath sends a shiver down Fíli’s spine. His jaw clenches.

“Kíli,” he warns, his voice low.

And suddenly there’s a tongue on his throat, Fíli nearly chokes on the immediate rush of arousal, and he can both hear and _feel_ his brother’s responding smirk, the bastard. The wet heat of Kíli’s tongue is quickly replaced with a filthy, open-mouthed kiss, and a groan tears from Fíli without his permission.

“ _Kíli_ ,” Fíli tries again, but he’s already lost. Kíli nips at the now overly sensitive skin, and Fíli is well and truly lost.

 

* * *

 

Fíli fucks like he kisses like he lusts: selfishly.

He’s hardly a good brother, he realizes dimly, Kíli’s fingers scrabbling at his breeches. He releases his brother from his smallclothes out of need and desire and a pounding in his ears, not for courtesy. If Fíli were the courteous sort, he would stop this, he would save his brother while he still could, he would save him from being devoured whole.

But then Kíli grins at him from between his legs, his smile radiant and smug from beneath his lashes, and he takes Fíli into his mouth and then all Fíli knows is the pounding in his ears and the panting of his lungs and the singing of his pulse and Kíli’s lips about his cock and Kíli’s hands tight on his thighs and Kíli’s groans and Kíli’s chuckles and Kíli and Kíli and _Kíli._

When Fíli comes, Kíli swallows it all and kisses him, more teeth than anything else because his grin is too wide.

Kíli may have been a jackrabbit once, Fíli realizes with a hand on his brother’s cock, Kíli’s moans shuddering through him, but he certainly isn’t one now.

“Jackrabbit?” Fíli breathes into Kíli’s ear. “No, brother, not anymore. You’re a _wolf_.”

Kíli comes like a shot with Fíli’s name on his lips.

 

* * *

 

Fíli soon sees that all of his worry had been for naught. Kíli will be devoured by no one— his own brother included.

Fíli’s chance of survival, though, is far less likely.

Kíli loves like Fíli fights: recklessly and all-consumingly. His kisses bite and his hands pull and his patience is never great. And Fíli, Mahal help him, Fíli always caves. He gives his brother everything he asks, in the end; he gives and gives and gives until he feels like a vessel that has been emptied of gold and refilled with the most valuable of steel. And he gives still.

Because if Fíli had thought his brother incandescent before, realized love has transformed him into a second sun. With Kíli’s grin or gaze or lips upon him, Fíli feels he can stare down the world and win.

 

* * *

 

Fíli dies like he fights like he lived: by Kíli’s side.

When Thorin falls, Fíli hears a crazed scream from somewhere behind him, and he knows it’s Kíli’s.

In an instant, Fíli knows how it will all end.

Kíli cuts a crooked path through the orcs, his blade a blur, his gaze fixed on the corpse of their bloody uncle.

“Kíli!” Fíli calls, his own blade hacking through the beasts, desperate to reach his brother and his uncle and the only home he’s ever known. _“Kíli!”_

He isn’t fast enough.

A spiked club slams against Kíli’s helmet, and he drops, suddenly more jackrabbit than wolf.

Fíli hears himself roar, suddenly animalistic in his raw ferocity. He is a lion of the house of Durin, and all those in his way will _smell_ the meaning of rage.

He rips his brother’s helmet off, nearly crumbling when he watches Kíli blearily blink in the sunlight. “ _Kíli_ ,” he mutters, relieved, too briefly pressing a kiss to his lips. His brother smiles into his mouth.

“Exhilarating, isn’t it?” Kíli asks wryly, and Fíli has to laugh, even as he hoists Kíli to his feet.

“Exhilarating,” Fíli echoes. He swipes a gentle thumb across Kíli’s cheek, mindless of the battle still crashing around them. Kíli catches Fíli’s filthy palm in a kiss, they share a glance, and then they turn as one to face the enemy. For a short while, nothing else matters but the constant thrum of Kíli’s bow peppered with the occasional sound of a sword sinking into orc flesh, the grunts and pants that reassure Fíli of his brother’s life. Behind them, their uncle doesn’t move, but he could be alive still. He _must_ be alive still.

And then the scale tips. Kíli falls, a spear in his side and an arrow in his throat. He collapses with a gurgle that enrages Fíli. _“Kíli!”_ he roars, a battle cry and a desperate plea— please be alive yet, please don’t leave me, _I’M GOING TO FUCKING TEAR YOU LIMB FROM LIMB_ , I can’t be alone, I love you, _DIE, YOU PIECE OF ORC FILTH,_ I love you, I love you, I love you—

When Fíli falls with a sword in his chest and tears on his cheeks and steel in his heart, he clutches Kíli’s cold hand like a lifeline, and they fall out of the world together.


End file.
